Seventy-nine, seventy-nine,
I say it over, and every time
it sounds peculiar. Is it a prime?
It’s a queer number, seventy-nine.
I will enter my eightieth year
tomorrow evening somewhere near
six o’clock, around dinnertime,
my mother told me. That’s a queer
hour to be born, or to enter an eightieth year.
But all of it’s queer, being here.
Thinking how what I thought was mine
was only borrowed, and what was dear
has been forgotten, and every line
I’ve written will become a sign
for nothing at all, given time.
But that’s what I was given, time.
That’s my present, present time.